Page 4 of The Harvest Homecoming

“Sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty, but Princess Alva has sent her personal assistant to take notes as she is temporarily indisposed,” he told Mama.

“Send him in,” Mama said, her gaze flitting to me.

Rani entered before she could return to dressing me down. My eyes drank him in as he bowed to Mama and then to each of us. His hair had grown out into a tangle of wild curls that I instantly adored. He was wearing a slim-cut, navy blue Brioni suit that hugged his narrow shoulders and lean waist. My mouth watered as I rose from my seat to greet him. All seated at the table—as well as Rani—gaped up at me as my napkin fluttered from my lap to the floor.

“Your Highness?” Rani queried me. Royals did not stand when staff entered the room. I knew that, and yet my ass had left my seat as if I’d sat on a hornet.

“Leg cramp,” I lied, shaking my right leg out and taking my seat again as my gaze lingered on the beautiful man in the fashionable suit. Rani always dressed impeccably. If memory served—and it did quite well—he looked just as good if not better out of his designer suits. “Good to see you, Rani. Your hair is different.”

“As is yours, Your Highness,” he countered politely yet coolly. As he should, given his station, but damn, the spark in those dark eyes told of a more passionate man just below the wool jacket. Rani Adhikari was a barely contained blaze. Suddenly I found myself needing the heat that only he seemed to possess. “New stylist?”

“No, no, still Gus. Just a new attitude,” I tossed out and frowned at Frode and Ivar, who were snorting in disbelief. “Would you like to join us?”

“That’s why he’s here, Harold,” Ivar said as my mother eyeballed me closely.

“I know, Ivar,” I lamely fired back. Lord, what was it about Rani that made me feel like a randy rooster while simultaneously reducing me to an eight-year-old with no grasp of snide comebacks? He flustered me. Always had. Which is why I had bolted after our brief but incendiary affair. “There’s a bench behind Mama.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Rani replied, taking a seat to dig his notebook from a slim satchel on his shoulder and fire it up. He crossed his legs and lifted his gaze to the table. I smiled at him. He frowned just slightly. Mama cleared her throat. Her own secretary arrived a moment later, sitting beside Rani on the stone bench, and I was forced to stop being a turd, as my mother had lovingly called me, and focus on a month-long celebration of all things Östermon.

Didn’t mean I couldn’t sneak peeks at Rani typing away. He would glance up and catch me staring then scowl as darkly as he dared. It hurt. He was so close I could smell the subtle woody scent of his Valentino eau de toilette, but emotionally so far away he might as well be back in Kensington. Did I mention that distance hurt?

Chapter Four

Two hours later, we were dismissed from the solar.

My brothers headed off to their relegated tasks, my mother went to her tennis lesson, and I charged out into the hallway to catch up with Rani, who was speedwalking away.

“You’re in quite the hurry,” I said as I came up alongside him outside the music room. Two maids bowed and hurried into the room where I’d taken piano lessons for years as a young man. Frode played cello, Ivar violin, and Anders nothing, as he was the baby, so he wheedled out of those excruciating lessons with Master Ballo.

“I’m sure that Princess Alva wishes to see the rough notes for the festival,” he curtly replied, keeping his stride at roadrunner speed.

“Does she prefer Lady Alva or Princess Alva?” I asked just to make conversation.

“Either, although most in the UK tend to still call her Lady Alva, even though she is a princess by marriage.”

He walked along, chin up, eyes locked ahead.

“How have you been?”

“Fine.”

We sped past the nursery where Frode’s boys slept while here.

“How do you find the UK?”

“It’s fine.”

Hmmm. “Are you enjoying your new position?”

“It’s fine.”

“If you use the word fine one more time, I will literally throw up right here on the runner imported from Spain and blame it on you.”

That brought him up short. He turned to glare up at me. “How would it be my fault if you vomit?”

“Because you stuck your finger of icy replies down my throat.”

One slim eyebrow twitched. “You’re a—” He drew in a shaky breath. “Very funny, Your Highness.”